I just recently bought a new to me houseboat from the original owner. The boat is a 92 47' Gibson Sport series. The previous owners were the original owners and have a pretty good collection of paperwork of all service. The engines have approximately 250 hours on them. The previous owners had basically turned the boat into a floating condo and lived on it for the last 12 years and it never left the dock. The owners had the engines winterized and had not started them in the last 5 years although they were turned over annually. When the owner put the boat up for sale she had the engines started and ran from a can of gas. The person who got them running was also the person who winterized them. They ran the RPMs up and cycled the drives forward and reverse. They functioned fine and I expected as much given the low hours. I know that the rest of the boat is in good shape due to the lived in nature. What should I do before my first trial run? I plan on replacing the belts and hoses. What else should I be looking to do before trusting it?

Impellers. Make sure the raw water pumps are rebuilt. Exercise all of the seacocks. Run the genny and perform similar maintenance there. Impellers, hoses, belts. Make sure the tanks are in good shape, and that means all of the hoses associated with fuel, waste etc..

"Ran from a can of gas" Probably ought to drain and dispose of the old gas in the tanks

Good luckNiles

He ran it from a can of gas because he did not want to fill the tanks again. He was only proving the engines were capable of running and didn't want to put gas in the tanks again without knowing when or if it would be running again. I asked him the same question and he showed me that they were bone dry and dropped a scope inside to prove it and show they were clean inside.

[/quote]He ran it from a can of gas because he did not want to fill the tanks again. He was only proving the engines were capable of running and didn't want to put gas in the tanks again without knowing when or if it would be running again. I asked him the same question and he showed me that they were bone dry and dropped a scope inside to prove it and show they were clean inside.[/quote]